Monday, February 22, 2016

Randy Spike – Trans Sister Radio (2016)

Comment: Randy Spike is a poet, painter, and musician from Long Island, New York whose uncompromising, staggering issue used to run in the vein of the mentality of the No Wave movement,
an outgrowth of innovative rock music whose forerunners were Andy Warhol, and The
Velvet Underground and its members side projects (Angus Maclise, Lou Reed, John
Cale). What Have You Learned? is the
most long-running and mind-boggling composition at Trans Sister Radio (indeed, the word “sister” in this context may denote
“Sister Ray”, one of the most radical benchmarks in the holdings of The Velvet
Underground) imbued with slightly buried monochromic, metallic-tinged noise eruptions
being backed up by spoken word threads and spectral samples of the sacred
music. Finally it rings out like a harrowing instance of symphonic music which
could be compared with the doings of Glenn Branca, for instance. Could it be tagged
“grey noise”, for instance? It is a frantic, dada-alike appearance saturated
with overwhelming emotions such as anger, desperation, anxiety, and eventually
resignation to some extent. The other two tracks are more noise rock-oriented
wherein Randy Spike exploits more conventional patterns and vamps in an
unconventional, writhing way to variegate his formidable result. At moments the
listener can perceive elements from the minimal music, at other times his music
harks back to the drone music and the Theatre of Eternal Music. Singular Gape Waves is a sublime
progression due to the amplifying, sinuous effect of the bass thudding which
ultimately chimes like sinister ambient music. Who dares to say thereafter that
noise music is not sexy altogether? In a word, it could be said the recent year started off with a big bang.